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B-52 Stratofortress Engine Is This Big

During our coverage of all things military, we’ve seen countless instances of the mighty B-52 Stratofortress. The American bomber, expected to become the first airplane in history to be in use for a full century, is currently patrolling the hottest parts of the globe, revealing itself to U.S. Air Force (USAF) photographers, and implicitly to us all, in all of its glory.
B-52 Stratofortress engine 11 photos
Photo: USAF/Senior Airman Michael Richmond
B-52 Stratofortress taking offB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 StratofortressB-52 Stratofortress after refueling op
We all know, at least theoretically, how big the thing is. If it were to fit on a scale, it would tip it at 185,000 pounds (83.2 tons) empty - when loaded, that jumps to a staggering 488,000 pounds (almost 220 tons).

Its size matches the weight. The bomber measures 185 feet (56.4 meters) from wing tip to wing tip and has a height of over 40 feet (over 12 meters).

It’s on those massive wings that no less than eight Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines are attached, each developing up to 17,000 pounds of thrust, enough to make the beast capable of traveling through the air at 650 mph (1,046 kph).

But all of the above are just numbers, and hard to put into perspective without a reference point. Luckily, at least as far as the size of the engines goes, we now have this incredible image, released a couple of weeks ago by the USAF.

The image shows three military engineers working on one of the eight Pratt & Whitney pieces of hardware, and it makes it perfectly clear how big each one of them is.

The engineers are with the 5th Maintenance Squadron and the 99th Civil Engineering Squadron, and the image was captured as one of the B-52's powerplants was being replaced (unclear if this particular engine is the one being taken out, or put in).

The Stratofortress was on deck at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada at the end of January when this happened, during the Red Flag-Nellis 22-1 exercise.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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